Papers by Christopher C Barnes
Communication and Democracy, 2023
This essay follows a group of activists in a local Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) chapter... more This essay follows a group of activists in a local Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) chapter as they navigate the challenges presented by planning, strategizing, and authoring legislation for a right to counsel initiative in their local context. In this article, I argue that regular involvement in DSA encourages members to use a socialist analysis to understand local, national, and global problems, requiring an interdisciplinary and practical educational process in civic competency, socialist politics, and organizational strategies. I rely on data collected from 10 months of participant observation in a local DSA chapter in Boulder, Colorado from April 2019 to February 2020. I focus on the major political project assumed by Boulder DSA from 2018 to 2020, a right to counsel ballot initiative titled No Eviction Without Representation (NEWR). Developing this ballot initiative involved a multi-year effort that offered numerous educational opportunities for chapter members and leaders to engage with the local political context and promote specific forms of civic engagement directed at tangible social change. The NEWR ballot initiative illustrates the political possibilities of dedi- cated socialist organizers and demonstrates the value of the poli- tical network developed by DSA chapters throughout the country.
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Millennials and Gen Z in Media and Popular Culture, 2023
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triple-C, 2020
This essay focuses on members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) political organisatio... more This essay focuses on members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) political organisation in the US and the ambivalence of using social media as a primary means of communication for socialist information and culture. Relying on in-depth interviews with fifteen active members and leaders in DSA, this essay asks: How does socialist communication on social media encourage both cohesion and fragmentation for activists within the DSA? Locating and analysing key tensions felt by DSA members in response to their use of Facebook and Twitter, this project sheds light on the ways in which socialism is presently communicated to publics and counterpublics and identifies important challenges for the expansion of the socialist movement.
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The Electronic Journal of Communication, 2018
This paper's primary focus is a critical evaluation of arguments about online commenters construc... more This paper's primary focus is a critical evaluation of arguments about online commenters constructed by major news outlets, which connect to historic theorizing about the media and the public in relation to mass society theory. In their contemporary form, these arguments neglect the commercial features and failures of our media structures and institutions. The central aim of this project is to challenge perceptions of online audiences, utilizing news articles that question the value of online commenting in relation to civility, discussion, and democracy for modern journalism. The arguments analyzed in this project work against the potential to imagine a truly democratic digital environment and offload the sedimented externalities of commercial journalism onto " human nature " and a technological deterministic reading of digital affordances. By tracking the features of these sweeping claims, it allows us to explore a systemic deferral that transforms online commenters into trolls, retrieving the most enduring aspects of mass society theory. This paper concludes with provisional recommendations for journalists and academics to make a concerted effort to include citizens in journalistic efforts through policy changes that release news work from commercial imperatives.
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Critical Studies in Media Communication, 2018
In this article we locate, interpret, and critique the figure of the “bad” white mother, focusing... more In this article we locate, interpret, and critique the figure of the “bad” white mother, focusing on the critically acclaimed AMC drama, Mad Men. Advancing feminist and postcolonial approaches to myth, we uncover a prevailing “white consciousness” that relies on racializing logics in, first of all, Mad Men’s representations of (white) motherhood through the character of Betty Draper, and second, public discussions of the show in academic and media outlets. Drawing on Black feminist thought, we propose that these discourses rely on and feed underlying assumptions that support post(racial)feminism—an ideological location that allows for the explicit embracement of “bad” mothering as a progressive, even transgressive act that, at the same time, implicitly relies on expectations for (good) mothering shaped by white privilege. This cross-pollination between postfeminism and whiteness, we argue, is especially important to engage, since it carries potentially limiting implications for our collective imagination about what anti-racist and feminist struggles should entail.
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Journal of Radio and Audio Media, 2015
This study used a content analysis of Web sites for 200 public radio stations to measure how stat... more This study used a content analysis of Web sites for 200 public radio stations to measure how stations are creating opportunities for dialogue and relationship building with listeners and donors. Results showed most Web sites were easy to use, provided useful information, gave visitors reasons to return, and had the potential to generate dialogic loops. Many of the sites could improve by making advertising links open in new windows and by providing more information for potential donors. A longitudinal analysis found significant increases from 2011 to 2014 in the number of sites providing links to Facebook, Twitter, and mobile apps.
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Book Reviews by Christopher C Barnes
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Thesis Chapters by Christopher C Barnes
This thesis examines the discursive intersections of neoliberalism and masculinity on The Soprano... more This thesis examines the discursive intersections of neoliberalism and masculinity on The Sopranos and Breaking Bad through a critical discourse analysis in order to illuminate larger sociocultural issues concerning contemporary masculinity. The Sopranos and Breaking Bad are praised in contemporary discourse as “artistic achievements,” and the following project interrogates particular moments in both texts that construct gendered discourses of neoliberalism, relying on the theoretical foundations of hegemonic masculinity. Through my analysis, I establish key moments when discourses about masculinity intersected with and connected to discourses about neoliberalism. Additionally, this project analyzes moral dimensions of neoliberalism within sociocultural discourse centering on The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. I determine that the lines between entrepreneur and criminal have blurred as a product of neoliberal politics and economics, and argue that sociocultural discourse about the programs prioritizes profit making above socially responsible ethics and morality.
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Papers by Christopher C Barnes
Book Reviews by Christopher C Barnes
Thesis Chapters by Christopher C Barnes